


Always Remember

by TheGreatElisaMousy



Series: Chaos in College [8]
Category: Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Depression, Grief, M/M, Mama Dark, PLEASE think carefully before reading if it is, Self-Harm, this is not a happy one, this might be triggering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-03
Updated: 2020-01-03
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:54:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22102921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheGreatElisaMousy/pseuds/TheGreatElisaMousy
Summary: It's been one year since Silver lost his best friend. The pain hasn't gotten any easier to handle.(READ THE TAGS. If this is triggering for you, I'd suggest giving it some good thought before giving it a read)
Relationships: Darkiplier/Wilford Warfstache
Series: Chaos in College [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1570645
Comments: 3
Kudos: 64





	Always Remember

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Doctor_Discord](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Doctor_Discord/gifts).



> I almost forgot about this one. I can't fucking believe I almost forgot about this one. Just know that this one... is not gonna be happy. At all. (Also, I feel like a terrible person having to do the research for this. Both for not being entirely sure on the information, and looking up the day Daniel Kyre died for a _fanfiction_. I was about 90% sure, but I didn't want to be wrong, because that would have felt just as terrible)
> 
> PLEASE think carefully if any of the tags above are triggering. Take care of yourself, and do what's best for you. I won't be offended if you turn back now, I'm not an ass

Silver awoke to Wil rolling out of Dark's bed, landing unceremoniously on the floor with an 'oof'. Dark responded by grabbing one of his pillows, smacking Wil in the head with it, before returning it to its normal position, not once lifting his head. Silver almost smiled sleepily at the couple's morning antics before he remembered the date.

September 16th. The date his best friend, Ibis, was found in his room, near death. He'd tried to kill himself, and to Silver's horror and devastation, two days later, Ibis got his wish. His brain damage was too severe and irreversible. Even if he, _somehow_ , came out of it, he wouldn't be the same. Not even close. And that thought broke Silver's heart every time he thought about it.

He had been with his girlfriend at the time, Roxanne, when Ibis's dad had called him, telling him Ibis was in the hospital. Silver hadn't hesitated to go visit, and it tore him apart to see his friend lying there, prone in the hospital bed, hooked up to several machines. He'd felt numb as he was told what happened. How hadn't he seen the signs?

Ibis was dead, and to this day, a year later, Silver was still convinced there was something he could have done, if he had only just paid attention.

He rolled over, facing the wall as he curled up. He could hear Wil leave the room, and knew it would only be about half an hour more before Dark was up. The demon might not have class until eleven, but he was usually an early riser. Silver selfishly hoped today wouldn't be a day where he stayed in bed longer due to pain, not for Dark's sake, but so that he could finally be alone to break down. To let out the pain in relative peace.

Thankfully, not even twenty minutes later, he heard Dark begin to stir. He groaned, but the sound of the shifting bed told Silver he'd sat up, and there was the sickening crack they'd all come to recognize as Dark snapping his broken neck back in place. No one knew why his body was so broken, but they'd all seen the effects to varying degrees.

Once he was out and the door was closed, Silver let the tears fall, pressing his face in the pillow to mask his sobs. If memory served, the room next door had housed Ed and Bim—a remarkably bad combination—and while he knew neither of them would particularly care if they heard him crying, they'd either mention it in passing to someone else, resulting in either King or the Host coming to check up on him, or make fun of him for it. And he couldn't handle either of those things. Not today, not tomorrow, and not Wednesday.

He just sat there and cried for what felt like hours. He wasn't up to going to class today, and he knew he should email his professors, but he just couldn't work up the energy. Maybe later. Would they accept this kind of excuse? Would they be alright with the fact that he emailed them _after_ class? He didn't know, but at the moment, he couldn't bring himself to care.

The hours passed, and slowly, one by one, he heard the others leave for class. He heard someone approach his door once, but they'd stopped outside before turning around, not even knocking. If he was right, Bing and RJ should be the only other ones still in the townhouse, but Bing would be too engrossed with whatever project he'd been working on, and RJ had been complaining about a paper he'd been putting off that was due the following day. He wouldn't be disturbed.

He left the bedroom, went into the bathroom, and dug through the drawers until he found them. Spare blades for the razors. Grabbing one, he returned to the bedroom, locking it behind him, just in case. He sat on his bed and took a deep breath.

He knew this was wrong. He knew he should be finding some other outlet, maybe talking to someone, but he just couldn't. He didn't want to talk about what happened, the pain, that would only cause him to focus on it more. He wanted to _escape_ it. He wanted to feel something, _anything_ but the grief Ibis's death caused, even if it was the physical pain as his skin gave way to the sharp blade.

He leaned back against the wall, rolling up his sleeves to reveal the scars. There weren't many, as he'd usually managed to stop himself after only one or two, but they were still there. He was able to hide them with wristbands, pulling them up a bit more than necessary to hide what no one needed to see.

_"We should become superheroes!"_

He placed the blade against his forearm, further up than he'd ever gone before—

_"It'll be fun!"_

—pressed down—

_"Just you and me against criminals, not having to worry about those rules cops have to follow!"_

—and swiped.

_"Vigilantism is illegal, you know."_

He did it again—

_"Well... yeah, but come on. We'd still be doing good!"_

—and again—

_"I don't know about this..."_

—and again.

_"Please? It'll just be you and me against the world."_

"You and me against the world..." he echoed quietly. That had been the plan. It had taken Ibis a few months, but he'd finally turned Silver around in his opinion on crime-fighting. They were even going to find some sort of chemical, or radioactive animal, or helpful alien to try to give them some kind of superpowers, so they wouldn't just be vigilantes, but _actual_ superheroes. But Silver couldn't see himself trying anything like that now, with his best friend no longer by his side.

It was why he was getting a pre-law degree. He'd go on to law school after this, if he could afford it, but this way, he could still help people, just like Ibis wanted. He could still do _good_. And while the law student in him protested against the habits—and business—of some of his roommates, he didn't have the power to do anything for it yet. And at least Ed made sure the kids went to a good home, and Google was holding back his homicidal tendencies. For the moment, anyway.

Silver glanced down at his arms. He hadn't even noticed when he'd switched arms, but both now had matching, almost perfectly mirrored lines of red. He watched the blood seep from the wounds, down his arm and onto his pants. He'd have to ask the Host for the best way to remove bloodstains from clothes. He seemed to have an unfortunate habit of bleeding from his eyes—Silver didn't know what _that_ was about—so he _had_ to know, right?

Dimly aware of his own actions, he stood again, shuffled toward the door, and headed back for the bathroom. He tossed the blade in the garbage before digging for the bandages he knew Dr. Iplier kept for the Host. It didn't take long to find them, and while he didn't do as well as he knew the med student would, he got the job done. He finally pulled his sleeves back down and went back to his room, crawled back into his bed, and let the numbness overtake him as he fell back asleep. Anything was better than the hurt at the moment. Even the emptiness.

* * *

He awoke to the sound of the door opening. He didn't move, but that didn't stop the person in the doorway. The dull ringing that met Silver's ears informed him it was Dark. "Silver?" he asked with that distorted echo. "Are you still asleep? It's after four."

Silver debated staying silent. He was facing away from the demon, he couldn't see that his eyes were open, couldn't see the silent tears still falling. He could pretend to be asleep, and Dark would either go to his own bed and not bother him, or just turn around and leave.

"No..." he found himself saying anyway, sitting up, discreetly making sure his sleeves covered his bandages. "I just... didn't feel up for class today."

Dark stared at him for a moment, and for a second, Silver thought he might ask why. Thankfully, however, Dark just said, "Alright," turned around and left.

* * *

Tuesday went about the same as Monday, but when Wednesday came, he couldn't hold back the sobs first thing in the morning. He was, however, on the couch, in full view of everyone who was awake. At the moment, this meant Wil, Google, and zombie-state Dark. All three turned to look at him, despite the fact that Wil was halfway to the front door. He stopped in his tracks. None of them looked like they knew what to do, and Google looked physically uncomfortable.

"What's wrong?" Wil asked, the first to speak, and his voice held a concern Silver hadn't heard from the man toward anyone but Dark.

Silver just shook his head and rolled over to face the couch. A cold hand—colder than any person's hand had any right to be—touched his shoulder. "Silver, you were crying Monday, and you didn't go to class then, or yesterday. What's. Wrong." Dark's tone was also unnervingly concerned. Silver didn't know how he was supposed to feel about that. Once again, he remained silent.

There was a strange whirring sound, and then Google spoke. "His best friend died one year ago."

That caused Silver to sit how. "How... how did you...?"

"I looked up your hometown in your school records," the android replied. "And then I looked up news articles from that area from a year ago. You were mentioned as his closest friend—'brothers in every way but blood'—in the obituary."

"And he hasn't come back yet?" Wil asked, confused, and Silver remembered what he'd said over the weekend about not staying dead.

Dark sighed, looking back at him. "Some people don't... want to come back," he said, and there was something about the way he spoke that made Silver think he was just humoring his boyfriend. Wil, however, didn't seem to pick up on it.

"Well, that's rude," he said, crossing his arms. He glanced at the clock on the wall. "Oh, fuck, I'd better get going." He gave Silver what the latter assumed to be an apologetic, and potentially reassuring, look before heading out the door.

Dark pulled himself up with a groan, having knelt down next to the couch. "I'll kick Dr. Iplier out of the room. You can stay there for today. Did you email your teachers?" Silver shook his head. He still hadn't been able to force himself to do it. Dark nodded once before looking at Google. "Google, look up Silver's schedule and send out an email to his professors to let them know he had a good reason for not going to class. Make something up, I don't care what it is. I'll talk to Dr. Turno before class today."

"You're not in charge of me," Google challenged, but Dark merely looked at him, eyes narrowed as the ringing around the grew slightly louder and the red and blue outlines around Dark began to split from him. "Fine..." the android reluctantly agreed.

Silver didn't understand. He genuinely _didn't_ understand. He'd never seen Dark this caring, this concerned. It didn't make sense.

But that was a thought for another time. With the others gone, with no distractions, the pain was starting to seep in again. It was time to go back to sleep.

* * *

He awoke several hours later to see the living room remarkably deserted, despite the fact that the clock said it was after five. Everyone—save for the Host—should be back by now. There was a faint smell of ozone lingering in the air, and there was the sound of movement in the kitchen. In fact, there was a _lot_ of movement in the kitchen. Silver sat up and looked toward the room in question and almost couldn't believe what he saw.

Dark and Will were there, Wil dropping a small amount of butter into a mixing bowl while Dark stood at the island counter, cracking an egg over a larger mixing bowl. Both of them wore aprons, but funnily enough, Dark was still in his suit underneath it, albeit missing his tie with the first few buttons undone. He was just pulling out whisk when Silver found his voice.

"Uh..." he said eloquently.

Dark looked up, beginning to whisk whatever mixture was in the bowl. Wil looked over his shoulder and his face broke into a grin. "Well, well, look who's up!" he exclaimed.

"What are you...?"

"Baking brownies," Dark replied as though it were the most normal thing in the world, mixing the ingredients in his bowl like it was nothing, not even bothering to look down. He paused. "We figured you could use... some kind of 'pick-me-up'. I know there's... nothing we can do to actually get rid of the pain..." His red and blue outlines flickered again, but less severely than they had that morning. "But we _can_ at least do this."

Silver nodded slightly. "Okay. So... why make them from scratch?"

"W— _I_ predate brownie mix," the demon stated. It wasn't hard to catch his slip-up, but Silver chose not to comment. Dark was very particular on what he did and didn't share about what he was, as well as his history with Wil. "I suppose I've just gotten used to it."

Silver nodded again, deciding to just watch them work in silence. It was almost like watching a cooking show, with how skillfully they worked—until Wil dipped his finger in his bowl and Dark whacked him with a wooden spoon. Despite the overall emotions of the day, Silver couldn't help the small laugh at the domesticity of it. A demon and a psychopath... making brownies in the kitchen. That was something he probably wouldn't get over any time soon.

Once the dish with the brownie batter was in the oven, they both wandered into the living room, taking a seat on either side of Silver. It made him feel incredibly awkward.

"So... where is everyone?" he eventually asked.

"They went out to dinner," Dark replied, reaching into the bag next to the couch, pulling out his psychology book. He didn't elaborate, and Silver didn't ask.

Wil flicked the television on, putting a game show on, but Silver found himself unable to focus on it. He was painfully aware of Dark glancing up from his book to look at him every few minutes.

Ibis would have thought this was hilarious.

At that thought, the dams broke, and Silver leaned forward, head in his hands. The tears were starting to fall again, and he could see Dark reach out to place a hand on his shoulder for a moment, just like that morning, before freezing. That was when Silver saw it.

His sleeves had ridden up, revealing the bandages he'd changed the previous night.

"Silver, what did you do?" Wil asked softly, eyes locked on the bandages.

Silver curled in on himself, not looking at either of them. He didn't want to talk about it, he _couldn't_ talk about it. He knew he shouldn't have done it, he knew it was wrong, but it had been an escape. It had been a way to escape his grief.

Before he could react, Dark had already taken one arm in his hand, gingerly removing the bandages. "Wil, go get the bandages. And the antiseptic." The request was immediately followed by a pop and the faint smell of bubblegum and cotton candy, and suddenly Wil was gone. Silver just stared at the spot he'd just occupied blankly. He could hear the man rummaging through the cupboards upstairs, and a few seconds later, he reappeared with another pop. He passed them, along with some cotton balls, to the demon without a word.

Dark soaked the first cotton ball, slowly and meticulously swiping it over each cut, seeming to ignore Silver's hiss in pain. Once he was done, he wrapped it back up in a new bandage and took his other arm, repeating this process. Silver had no idea what to think about his actions.

When he was done, he just looked at Silver. "Why?" was all he asked.

Silver lowered his eyes, staring at the fresh bandages. "I just... didn't want it to hurt. I wanted the grief to go away. I didn't feel it when I..." He didn't know why he was opening up to them. He'd only known them for a few weeks, and he hadn't even told his parents about this, or any of his friends at home. But somehow... it didn't make it worse like he thought it would. It felt... nice to get it off his chest.

Dark just nodded to himself. "You're going to see one of the campus counselors," he told the pre-law major. It wasn't a suggestion, it wasn't a request.

"I will take you myself," Wil interjected.

"Don't hold these things in," Dark continued. "You're only going to end up hurting yourself." He glanced back at Silver's arms again. "More."

Silver frowned. The demon wasn't very open about himself, but there was _something_ he was hiding. Something painful that he hadn't told anyone, even Wil, and quite possibly never would. Pot, kettle.

"Okay," he said quietly. He knew he needed help. He'd known he'd needed help since the first day he'd taken a razor to his arm. But he'd always been nervous, afraid, and that fear held him back. But Wil and Dark were giving that extra push. Suddenly, he wasn't the only one getting hurt anymore. "Okay," he repeated.

Dark and Wil both looked at him for another second, then looked at each other, sharing an expression he couldn't place. Then Wil grinned and patted him—a bit hard—on the back. "Good man!" he said, turning back to the television like nothing had happened, and for some reason, that felt reassuring. They knew he was having severe problems, they were doing what they could to help him, but they were still managing to treat him fairly normally. They weren't treating him like glass.

That thought, that reassurance, helped him focus. Ibis would be happy that he was getting better, that he was getting help. And for the first time since that day, thinking of his best friend didn't completely wreck him. It still hurt, yes, but he could work through it, and he just might be able to come out the other side.

* * *

Everyone slowly trickled back into the townhouse shortly after the brownies were finished. They were, quite honestly, amazing, and Silver was tempted to find some way to bribe the two to make them every week.

"Where did those brownies come from?" Ed asked suspiciously.

Dark and Wil shared a look. "I have no idea," Dark lied.

"We just found them," Wil added.

Silver couldn't help but smile.

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, I'm honestly not entirely sure how this came out. A few explanations: The ozone Silver smelled was a result of Dark going and coming back through the Void. He had to go back to the manor to pick up ingredients for the brownies. Mama Dark has been engaged, and anyone who has read Ego Manor (rather than SOMEHOW finding this one first) can definitely attest to the fact that the rest of the egos are Wil and Dark's children, and Dark is a worrier. And if anyone's wondering about Dark's reaction to finding about Ibis, and the pain of losing someone... well...
> 
> Actor!Mark was an ass, we can all agree on that. He and Celine probably didn't have the best of relationships. But I still can kind of see that despite that, his death (before they knew what was really going on, of course) hurt both of them. And even now... there are a lot of times where you can hate someone, when they've done things you can't forgive, but somehow, it still hurts, at least a little, when you lose them.
> 
> Okay, NEXT TIME should be the thing with people finding out about Bim. I'm sorry I lied, but I was fast approaching this date in the chronology of Chaos in College and I couldn't skip it. It wouldn't be right.


End file.
